This is in fact a topic on which many have have been thinking. You raise a
number of interesting issues.
1) Neither Dawkins, nor E.O.Wilson, nor most of the other so-called "genetic
determinists" have claimed that genetic predisposition is the end of the
matter. Yes, human beings have to pay attention to genetically determined
modes of behavior, but no, that's not all we are. We are, indeed, different
from other animals. We think.
For that reason, actions to drastically reduce the total population of the
Earth, violating the "selfishness" of our own particular gene packets, are
both rational and, I hope, possible. We can see beyond both the narrow
behavioral patterns of gene propogation, and even the mathematics of kinship
altruism, and act on behalf of the planet as a whole.
2) Of course, this isn't easy. Even if our goals are global, our actions
and payoffs are still local. It is on this level that population reduction
strategies must focus.
My own proposal -- impossible to impliment of course -- is that everyone be
"reversably steralized" some time before puberty. Then, if two people wish
to have a child, they can get the process reversed. The conceptual advantage
of this is that childbearing becomes a positive choice, instead of the lack
of the negative choices Ike mentions. The drawbacks are all practical: it
must be simple, cheap, reliable, and universal. The other choice facing us
all is wholesale famine, plague, and bloodshed, combined with worldwide
ecological disaster. What fun.
-- **************************************** C. David Noziglia Wellington, New Zealand noziglia@actrix.gen.nz
"Blessed are those who have no expectations, for they will never be disappointed." Kautiliya Shakhamuni Sidhartha Gautama Buddha
"Things are the way they are because they got that way."
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